The pandemic has caused the world’s birth rate to collapse
The world reached peak lockdown on April 8th 2020, when the majority of the global population, over 3.9 billion people, were legally required to stay at home. Many people spent more time together with their cohabitants than ever before. One might expect that couples, forced into close proximity and with little else to do, would have whiled away their time making more babies than usual. In fact, the opposite seems to have happened.
Birth rates in January 2021, 9 months after peak lockdown, have plummeted. California and Spain saw falls of over a fifth, year on year. France, often envied in Europe for its relatively high birth rate, recorded a decline of 14%. Hungary’s rate fell by 10%, in spite of the government’s generous pro-natal subsidies.
What is behind such a precipitous drop? The biggest culprit is money. Having a child is an expensive endeavour in the rich world, and couples are well aware of it. Sudden joblessness or loss of income forces would-be parents to think twice about having children, potentially leading them to postpone or cancel their family plans.
The financial situation of aspiring parents is difficult to measure, but data on GDP growth can serve as a reasonable proxy for economic anxiety. By comparing each countries’ GDP growth in the second quarter of 2020, with the drop in the birth rate (relative to the yearly trend) 9 months later, a remarkable pattern emerges. Countries that weathered the economic storm best, like Lithuania and South Korea, saw only a minor pandemic-induced effect on their birth rates. In Finland, where the economy shrank by less than 5%, the birth rate even increased. On the other hand, countries that were hit hard economically, like Spain and Hungary, suffered a big drop in births.
There remains a glimmer of hope for weary demographers. In a parallel to the Harvesting Effect, which posits that a high Covid-19 death rate now will be offset by fewer deaths later, the current birth rate may yet rebound to above average levels after the pandemic subsides. A study by the Institute for Family Studies shows that following other epidemics, the birth rate reaches its lowest point 9 months after the initial outbreak, but goes on to recover, and after 20 months, it peaks at 120% of the historical level.
There may already be signs of this happening in South Korea. The outbreak there began earlier than in Europe or North America, with lockdowns and social distancing being imposed in February, rather than late March. The year on year decline in birth rate bottomed out in November, at -16%, but then rose to -8% in December. Global data for February, likely to be released later this month, will show whether couples were really forgoing children, or merely postponing them.
